Craving coronavirus news, but not all the time!

A new poll from Pew Research Center shows that 71% of Americans say they need to take breaks from news about the coronavirus.

Sometimes you have to do something other than watch the news. In this photo, a Texas woman and her son go fishing.

ABC’s “World News Tonight” has become the No. 1 show in America. Fox News just had its best month ever in primetime. “Morning Joe” just had its best ratings ever. The Sunday morning shows are attracting more viewers than they have in years. Local TV news ratings are up. Traffic for many newspapers and digital outlets has gone up considerably. Even subscriptions for news online have risen.

People are craving news, most of which has something to do with the coronavirus. But … 
They need a break from it, too.

The latest poll from Pew Research Center shows that 71% of Americans say they need to take breaks from news about the coronavirus, and 43% say the news leaves them feeling worse emotionally.

The odd takeaway: Audiences can’t get enough coronavirus news until, well, it becomes too much. Then they can’t take it anymore. At least for a while.

These numbers are not surprising. The stress of the coronavirus — the restlessness felt from staying indoors, the fear of getting sick, the grief of losing a loved one, the anxiety about the economy and jobs — continues to take a heavy toll.

Audiences want to know as much information as they can: the latest number of cases and deaths, projections for the immediate future, reports on when life might return to normal (or whatever the new normal is going to look like).
 
But there does come a point — even for those of us who report on these matters — when you have to take a break to binge-watch a show on Netflix or read a book or crank up music videos on YouTube or go for a walk or do anything besides look at more news. One Poynter Report reader even told me she has trouble watching her favorite late-night talk shows because they talk about coronavirus news or show clips from President Donald Trump’s press conferences.

But this is where the news outlets cannot let it up. The Pew numbers should not be the media’s cue to cut back on coronavirus coverage. The press’ job is to keep accurate information coming — as much of it as it can and as fast as it can.

If audiences want to step away from time to time for their own sanity, they should. But the media needs to keep being there. All the time.

The return of podcasts

While most media has had a jump in interest with the coronavirus, one area has not: podcasts. With people forced to stay inside, podcast downloads have dropped over the past couple of months. That actually makes sense when you consider a lot of people listen to podcasts while commuting to work. For many these days, the commute to work is from the bedroom to the dining room table — hardly enough time to listen to a podcast.

Finally, however, some slightly good news for podcasts. In his latest Hot Pod newsletter, Nieman Lab’s Nicholas Quah points out that from April 20-26, podcast downloads went up slightly (4%) from the week before. So did audience numbers, by 2%. Pretty modest increases, but that’s the first time those numbers have gone up since the first week of March.
Even still, Quah says podcast pub lishers are trying to sort out how to approach new podcasts with the industry in flux because of the uncertainty that comes with the coronavirus. Quah writes that industry sources have told him that now is still a good time to launch coronavirus-related podcasts, although some wonder if the field is becoming too saturated.

Quah wrote, “When it comes to non-coronavirus podcasts, the outlook is a mixed bag. It’s generally understood that podcasting can serve a few vital roles during this moment; in addition to offering information and analysis, they can give audiences comfort, community, escapism, or just distraction. The big question is how much appetite there is among listeners to try something new, as opposed to sticking with the things they already have.”
By the way, if you enjoy podcasts, Quah’s “Hot Pod” is a must-read, always chock-full of good information.
Airing Trump or exposing him?

President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus in the Rose Garden of the White House on Monday.

Once you get past a little meandering at the start, New York Magazine’s Olivia Nuzzi has some interesting thoughts about whether President Trump’s White House coronavirus press conferences should be shown in their entirety. Some have made the argument that Trump’s presses should not be aired live from start to finish because Trump makes too many false claims or dangerous and irresponsible statements. But Nuzzi writes. “Can the press protect the American people from the president? Should we? No.”
Back on March 24, I made the same argument when I wrote, “When it comes to the president and his actions, it’s necessary that the media does not shield the American people and, in effect, protect Trump from the public.”

Those opposed to Trump seem most bothered that his press conferences are aired in their entirety. 
Nuzzi writes, “What a lot of Trump critics miss is that the biggest threat to his presidency isn’t the pandemic and the collapse of the global economy. It’s Trump. The more we see him — rambling, ranting, casually spitballing about bleach and sunlight — the clearer that becomes. But that’s not the media’s problem, and taking the spotlight off of him as he displays the full extent of his inadequacies would only serve to help him and to make the public less informed about what the federal government is doing — or not doing.”

One more note about Trump’s press conferences

As the debate about airing Trump’s White House press conferences continues, it should be noted that the three major networks — ABC, CBS, NBC — have, generally, not been showing the press conferences. And if the press conferences coincide with their nightly national news broadcasts, the networks almost always stay with their news.

Based on that Pew Research Center poll, that’s probably a smart idea. Of those polled, 56% said the national news is their major source of information, as opposed to 31% who said the White House press conferences are their major source.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey reports that Trump was presented with internal polling by advisors that show he is trailing Joe Biden in several key states. The advisors’ point in showing Trump those polls, Dawsey wrote, is to “curtail Trump’s freewheeling daily briefings.”

That reporting matches up with other reporting that has said Trump’s daily briefings have hurt his approval ratings. They’re having the opposite impact that Trump might have intended when he started turning the daily news conferences into substitutes for his political rallies.